Democracy

A state nonprofit organization is making it easier for people like you to share your thoughts on bills at the State House. Citizens Count, Live Free or Die Alliance has launched what it’s calling the “Citizen Voices” campaign, which creates online discussions of issues and then summarizes those discussions in testimony before the legislature. Joining me now to talk about Citizen Voices is Jacqueline Benson, the editor of the nonprofit and manager of “Citizen Voices.” She spoke with NHPR’s Peter Biello.

Recent polling shows that many Americans in both political parties agree that it’s a serious problem. But while they are unhappy with the influx of big money donors into elections made possible by the Citizens United ruling, they also seem pessimistic about changing the system. Still, some have made this a top priority, claiming that meaningful campaign finance reform is essential to a healthy democracy.

Although top races got the attention in this year’s mid-term elections, voters in a majority of states also had a slate of ballot measures to consider. We’ll look at what some of the big topics were, from marijuana laws to the minimum wage, and how the results fit into the overall narrative for this year’s election. First, though, we'll look at a law in New Hampshire that prohibits 'ballot selfies.'

We’re back in school again, and back at the polls. Seemed like a good time to listen back to this conversation on the Exchange from 2009. Laura spoke with a few members of a newly appointed task force to examine the state of civics education in NH.

For most of the twentieth century, Americans got between a quarter and a half of their daily calories from uniform loaves of factory baked white bread. It was a symbol of an industrial food revolution that inspired national pride; a dough so emblematic of a successful democracy that the book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf was written not by a baker, but a professor of politics; the author, Aaron Bobrow-Strain, teaches politics at Whitman College in Washington. He also wrote about his own attempt to prepare the perfectly rectangular cloud-like loaf in The Believer magazine. We spoke to Aaron when his book was first published about the deeply symbolic place of white bread in American identity; the book is now out in paperback.

American lawmakers are furious about a mounting diplomatic crisis in Egypt, where dozens of nongovernmental workers, including 19 Americans, could face trial.

The United States says Egypt needs to let pro-democracy groups continue their work to help the country's transition, but Egypt accuses them of operating illegally.

The work of democracy promotion groups has raised suspicions in many countries, but Lorne Craner, who runs the International Republican Institute, says he has never seen anything like what's going on now in Egypt.

Sweden is trying something new these days. Each week, the Swedish government’s twitter account, “At Sweden,” is being handed over to a Swedish citizen. And for seven days, that person can say anything they want to the account’s 25,000 plus followers. The government calls it “the world’s most democratic twitter account.” J.